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Email letters, Oct. 7, 2011

New USDA school food nutritional guidelines add more fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and low-fat milk to school meals and are based on Institute of Medicine recommendations. While these standards represent an opportunity to improve student health, which research shows correlates to improved academic achievement, some leaders have voiced opposition.

Their argument against the new nutrition guidelines focuses on the proposed rule to limit potatoes in school meals. Many schools have relied on starches to fulfill daily vegetable requirements while limiting other vegetable choices. The Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommends that kids eat a wide variety of vegetables to get all the nutrients they need — exactly what the proposed guidelines intend to do.

The USDA will help schools address increased costs by raising lunch reimbursement by 6 cents per meal and requiring food revenues to remain in food service. The $6.8 billion is a worthy investment considering obesity costs the U.S. $270 billion annually.

For many students, school meals represent their only source of balanced nutrition. And it’s a fact — well-fed, healthy kids learn better. We encourage leaders to support this opportunity to prevent obesity and nourish our children who need it most.

MAREN STEWART, president and CEO
LiveWell Colorado
ANNE WARHOVER, president and CEO
The Colorado Health Foundation
CHRIS WATNEY, president and CEO
Colorado Children’s Campaign
City Council should be protecting viewsheds

How ironic. On the same day that the Grand Junction Area Chamber of Commerce and the Economic Partners send out a survey on Community Image, the Grand Junction City Council approves a salvage yard near the Fifth Street Bridge.

One of the features of the Economic Partners survey is that once you’ve responded, you can take a quick glimpse at other responses. When I answered the survey, my number one priority for improving the image of Grand Junction was improving the visual aspects of the entrance to the city from the south (i.e. over the Fifth Street bridge). I was not alone, as that single improvement led the responses as many peoples’ highest priority.

Allowing a new salvage yard on Sicth Street will take away from the visual improvements that have been made with the Riverside Parkway. Not only that, but how many millions were spent to clean up the area and move the Van Gundy Salvage yard? What a waste of money, if only a few years later a different City Council can negate the progress made in the name of new jobs.

We all want new jobs in our area. But it seems to me the city could have worked with Grand Junction Metal Movers to find a different industrial site that is not in the Fifth Street Bridge viewshed. We’ve got plenty of industrial land in the valley. Why not help this company find a site that would both benefit them and preserve the city’s investment in cleaning up its southern entrance?

KRISTEN LUMMIS
Grand Junction
Protesters need common-sense ideas

The demands that organizers Chris Robinson and Jacob Richards listed for their plans to demonstrate locally sounds like ’60s hippies, whiners, tree huggers and the crowd from “we deserve everything free.” If they really wanted to get a crowd into the streets, common-sense ideas like:
1. Cut back EPA authority by 50 percent;
2. Stop subsidies to solar and ethanol energy which burns more energy than they produce at 3–9 times the costs;
3. Get term limits into the federal system so as to get rid of Chris Dodd and Barney Frank, the old bulls that caused the housing debacle in the first place now in charge of fixing it;
4. Stop handing out perpetual unemployment checks;
5.Stop in-state tuition for illegals nationwide;
6. Stop citizenship to children born to illegal parents in this country;
7. Stop I.R.S. from paying the illegal parents $1,000 for each child they list as theirs while in this country;
8. Demand tax increase for everyone, as well as spending cuts;
9. Call for a flat tax with no deductions that everyone has to pay, workers and loafers.
R.M. SHERMAN
Grand Junction

Obama is out of touch with the American people

President Obama’s recent news conference on Oct. 6th magnifies the fact that he is out of touch or does not want to be in touch with the majority opinions on crucial subjects facing the government. A count of how many times he said, “The American people want ...” in that conference would be interesting?

How can he think the American people want him to pressure the Congress into a temporary jobs solution to a long-range jobs problem financed by raising taxes? The president keeps saying it is paid for? Then he explains how he would get the money to pay for it, so it is not paid for unless he gets Congress to increase taxes. I wish the president and Congress would quit speaking for all the American people in defending their position.

I do not think the Congress is a do-nothing Congress as a whole. The president had both the House and the Senate in his camp for the first two years and never got a budget proposal from the Democratic Congress, so now he blames the Republicans for inaction. Isn’t the present budget standoff and jobs bill a result of the Congress in the first two years doing nothing except pass the health care law using a back door trickery method.

It is scary to see how out of touch our president is.

RICHARD MCBRIDE
Grand Junction

VA medical center is a great hospital

I want the public to know we have the best hospital in this country (public, private or federal). I was admitted in the ER at 2:30 p.m. and in the operating room by 6:30 p.m. and was there ten days.

I not only received the best medical service by surgeons, medical dDoctors, RNs, LPNs and admin clerks in the world, but lots and lots of TLC. The volunteers are many and the best of the best. I want to thank them all.

I also want to share the impact this hospital has on our local economy. Veterans come from all over the country for a variety of medical needs. To name a few areas impacted are St. Mary’s Hospital, Community Hospital, hotels and motels, restaurants, all modes of transportation, medical supply companies and home health care companies. They are also one of the best employers in the area.

This is from a very God blessed and thankful veteran.

God bless all our veterans and the United States.

BENNY LENARD
Grand Junction

Vote ‘No’ on mill levy override

KREX Channel 5 reported that School District 51 says that more than $1 million will have to be cut from its budget. School District 51 anticipated having 165 less students this year, and would thus have less money. Enrollment actually dropped by 360 students, causing a deficit of $1.1 million.

Do students cause expense or income to the district? The School District wants more money when enrollment goes up and they want more money when it goes down. Teaching our children just seems to be a burden to them.

By the way, School District 51 gave $1 million to Mesa State College a few years ago. Perhaps they should have kept it for situations like this.

Vote “No” on the District 51’s mill levy override.

SHARON ARMSTRONG
Palisade

Cut spending, leave taxes alone

Watching Washington and the games being played, I think they believe information is still being distributed by the same antiquated system available in 1965. The Republicans call for tax cuts, what cuts? How much?

The Democrats call for tax the rich. How much? And who do they consider rich, $250,000 or is it more? Retirees will be in this group.

Obama says to pass another job bill now. I look at his proposal and the money seems to go to union workers, teachers, fireman, police and union construction jobs, not to the 80 percen of non-union citizens. Republicans only will do tax cuts to help, but won’t go along with cuts to Social Security for workers.

I look at this and say it all looks stupid and won’t work. Why cut Social Security revenues when it is going broke. Why cut taxes when we have indebted our children’s future by 14 trillion and climbing. Let’s cut spending, leave taxes alone, reduce regulations to spur business, and stop this fallacy that if we go green we can save the world when other countries have no intention of going green.

RONALD NEAL
Palisade
Science would not exist without religious thinkers

An Oct. 2 “You Said It” stated, “Don’t you dare get rid of Doonesbury. He’s exactly what the under educated are afraid of.” On Sept. 28, the Doonesbury strip, making fun of conservative Christian political candidates (as usual), declared, “Evolution is the foundation of all life sciences. Without it, whole fields — from biology to genetics to ecology — can’t exist!” Really?

Pasteur, who was opposed to spontaneous generation and Darwinism, would be considered by most scientists today as the greatest biologist of all time. Mendel, a creationist, is considered the father of genetics. Pascal, Newton, Faraday, and Lord Kelvin were not only scientists, but Christian thinkers and theologians.

Perhaps Doonesbury author Gary Trudeau is merely ignorant of the reality that Christians were pioneers in the development of science, or maybe he’s purposely deceiving people whose knowledge is lacking due to the religious Humanists who have censored these facts from all our school’s textbooks.

As for Trudeau implying Christians who believe in the Biblical account of creation won’t make good leaders, I prefer the opinion of John Jay, co-author of the Federalist Papers and first Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court: “Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty, as well as the privilege and interest of a Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers.”

Unalienable rights, the foundation of all of our freedoms, cannot exist without the Creator. These rights come from the God who created us, not government.

Many of the themes in “Doonesbury” are not appropriate for children, who — if they read any of the newspaper — read the comics first. It seems to me that discretion would dictate the removal of “Doonesbury” from the comic section of the newspaper.

WESLEY YEAGER
Grand Junction

Citizens should have say in crosswalks for university

A news story stated that medians and a crossing for Colorado Mesa University will be constructed and will cost the citizens of Grand Junction over $220,000. The cost of building two foot-bridge crossings over the top of Twelfth Street would be safer and I wouldn’t think the cost would be any higher than the present plan.

If the citizens are going to pay for this improvement for the university, than let’s take a serious look at the alternatives choice the most long term and safe solution at the same time considering the cost comparisons.

Also let the citizens have a say in the final decision.

RICHARD MCBRIDE
Grand Junction

Vote for Mason for Delta School Board

This time voters have a real choice for school board. It is no accident that charter, private and vision schools outperform public schools at a lower cost. They must or lose their students. Insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result.

As a country, we are 31st in math and 23rd in science, an F grade. Competition encourages innovation and does deliver a better result at a lower cost. The function of the school board is not just to run the public schools, but to deliver an excellent educational experience at the lowest possible cost. As an additional option, the school board can offer, at its discretion vouchers, vision and contract schools or it can block these alternatives. These options charge at least $2,000 less per pupil than that of the public schools ($7,567) and produce a better or equivalent result. They can show the way.

I seek your vote. If elected and with the support of like minded board members, I promise you a superior educational experience at a lower cost. It can be done. Over half of the state budget is education ($4.3 billion).

If nothing different is done, there will be more Proposition 103s that will raise sales, income and property taxes to support an increasingly inefficient, wasteful, ineffective education system that smothers the full potential of our kids. Just think what you could do with $227,000 per 30 students because that’s what our education system is costing us and wanting more. Vote for Mike Mason for Delta School Board.
MIKE MASON
Cedaredge

Put funding for CMU crosswalk to the voters

After reading a recent article in The Daily Sentinel, I got to thinking that maybe Grand Junction City Council could put another measure on the ballot and ask the taxpayers if the city of Grand Junction — who is always crying that revenues are down and that they don’t have enough money — should spend over $253,000 taxpayer dollars to build a new median and cross walk on 12th street so the jaywalking Colorado Mesa students — who can’t be bothered walking to the intersection where there is already a light and cross walk — can get to the other side of the street safely.

Maybe a cheaper solution is to have the Grand JunctionPolice Department hand out citations to students who jay walk and then they would cross where they are suppose to. But I guess that is to simple. Let’s go with the expensive alternative and not make the students follow any kind of rules.
RICHARD GERHARDT
Fruitvale